Aphex Twin - Drukqs [PA] (CD 2001)

Depending on how you want to look at it, Drukqs is either diverse
or incoherent. It doesn't feel like an album so much as two EPs and
a bunch of B-sides taped together.

Drukqs features several piano solos, a first for Aphex Twin. Some
of these, such as the beautifully bittersweet Avril 14th, are performed
on a traditional grand piano. As nice as it is to hear pretty
melodies played over broken chords, there is nothing outstanding
about Aphex Twin's piano compositions. Ludovico Einaudi's album Le
Onde covers similar ground, only better.

The other piano solos on Drukqs are played on a prepared piano.
Although I am not well versed in this instrument, I suspect John
Cage already has it pretty well covered.

The fast tracks feature scattered beats and strange synth sounds,
but Aphex Twin later improved on this style himself with his next
releases, the Analord series and Chosen Lords album.

Gwely Mernans just sounds as if it fell off of Selected Ambient Works
Volume II, got lost, and wandered onto this album by mistake.

Most of the remaining tracks sound like random ideas that didn't fit
anywhere else, such as pieces of music in a style all of their own,
disconcerting background noises, strange sounds, and an answerphone
message (although I'm curious as to whether the good people at Warp
Records were goodthinkful enough to pay AOL Time Warner for the
privilege of including the answerphone message, which features Aphex
Twin's parents singing Happy Birthday to You to him).

Drukqs is only for the hardened Aphex Twin fan. Although it isn't
bad, it's largely redundant. You'd be better off with Le Onde and
Chosen Lords instead.

Opening with an unexpected prepared piano piece, in a similar style to that of John Cage (who placed metal objects such as chains and bolts across the piano strings to get a unique effect), this album, as with Richard D James's other pieces of work, is unremitting in its structure of a collection of tracks which send the listener into a consecutive series of varying states of highly pleasurable awe.

Drukqs, (the artist has said that the word is totally made up, and denies any advocation to the consumption of drugs) did recieve a great deal of negative criticism in its year of release in 2001 , as most reviewers found it lacking in the novelty of earlier works, (assumedly, Windowlicker and Donkey Rhubarb in particular) though I find it to be stylised in the way that it conveys the sounds to be made with mechanical devices. The theme of Nanou, taken form the Windowlicker single is that of sounds produced by clockwork and this appears to have become an extended theme in Kladfvgbung Micshk, though this may be somewhat of a semantic field, as every track (other than the piano pieces) sings the name of the electronic device that it was created on. Every electronically produced piece has an emotionless, robotic and inhuman characteristic to it that, rather than being evidence of the absence of novelty inherent in RDJ's work, I see as being the albums style- To word it succinctly, the album sounds as though it was programmed by a machine; a robotic body of metal, rather than a man of flesh.

The man that started the Reflex record label with Thom Jenkinson (aka Squarepusher) and RDJ once that that James simply doesn't care about what people think about his work. James himself said that he is surprised to have sold one hundred albums, let alone the millions that he has already has had distributed bearing his name. (The latter point has been added to allay any opinions of RDJ to be arrogant, money-grabbing or inconsiderate) And it is the former point that leads on to the fact that James, whilst donning pieces of such meticulous programming and intricate presentaion, has also added some humorous 'tracks' just to show that he still doesn't particularly give a damn about any reactions to this, his last 'true' slbum. These come in the form of tracks of his parents singing 'Happy Birthday' as an answering machine message in Lornaderek. Similarly, other tracks perhaps not suited to those expecting to get the highest volume and most beats per bar for thier buck may be dissappointed by abstract journeys into James's imagination, with bizarre sound effect tracks such as Ausossis, containing what sounds like a father telling his daughter to daughter to change into her pyjamas, but with the sounds warped. There is also the equivelant of almost one of the two discs taken up with the fourteen piano/organ tracks. However, these tracks are few and nothing for rave-goers to get anxious about, as the other half of Drukqs remains untouched in its frenetic rhythmed mayhem

All in all this is an excellent collection of tracks ranging from meticulously monstrous to elegently serene. An almost perfectly balanced album semmingly delivered to Earth from the Gods themselves, Drukqs is versatile enough to please everyone's musical palette. And, when compared to Electronica albums of his friends released in the same year, such as 'Go Plastic' it fairs rather well, too. Therefore, if you have purchased this album, you are certianly likely to enjoy Drukqs as well.